The Louisiana lieutenant governor’s office says the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana doesn’t plan to sue Texas state Rep. Dennis Bonnen over his use of a Cajun slur, as suggested Thursday by one of its board members.

AUSTIN — The Louisiana lieutenant governor’s office clarified Friday that a state agency has no intention of suing Texas state Rep. Dennis Bonnen over his use of a Cajun slur.

The threat of legal action came Thursday in a letter to Bonnen, R-Angleton, from Warren A. Perrin, a board member of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL). Perrin suggested he may file a claim with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights if Bonnen continued to use the term “coonass,” as he did Tuesday during a legislative hearing.

“[Perrin] may have said something, but he does not speak on behalf of the agency,” said Jacques Berry, a spokesman for the office of Louisiana Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne.

Dardenne, a Republican candidate for Louisiana governor, oversees CODOFIL, which is tasked with teaching Louisianans about French language and culture.

Bonnen, the second highest-ranking member of the Texas state House, upset some Louisiana state legislators when he used the slur during a committee meeting on the influx of unaccompanied minors into Texas from Central America. He was comparing the cost of educating the immigrant children to that of teaching kids from Louisiana who fled to Texas after Hurricane Katrina.

“We had to have a teacher who could do coonass in English, but here we have to do Spanish and English, maybe, and there’s a higher marker,” Bonnen said.

Bonnen’s capital and district offices didn’t return requests for comment Wednesday and Thursday.